The Permanent Mission of Afghanistan in Vienna participated in the 16th Meeting of the States Parties to the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on Their Destruction, held in Vienna from 18-21 December 2017.

OSCE – 1170th Permanent Council
Agenda item 1:
Report by the Special Representatives of the Chairperson-in-Office on
Youth and Security

21 December 2017

Thank you, Chair!

Let me start by thanking the Special Representatives on Youth and Security for their comprehensive and excellent report. We congratulate Mr. Alajbegovic, Ms. Deininger, Mr. Pugliese, Mr. Safdary and Mr. Schernbeck upon their great efforts in 2017.

We commend the OSCE for providing a stage for young people at major events of our organization, making their voices heard at meetings of the Ministerial Council and the Permanent Council, the Asian Contact Group, in events of the OSCE campaign “United in Countering Violent Extremism” and at other meetings organized by OSCE institutions and structures.

Afghanistan shares OSCE’s dedication to boost the role of youth in society and fully integrate youth in our peace and development agenda, making full use of their potential to nurture Afghanistan’s young democracy. We are committed to protect our young people while facilitating the participation of our young generation, girls and boys, across all spheres of society.

Almost 65 percent of Afghans are under 25 years of age. Afghanistan’s Unity Government makes every effort to provide education and opportunities and to empower our young people to facilitate full participation and to contribute to stability and development in Afghanistan.

Afghanistan’s National Youth Policy was created in 2014, by the Office of the Deputy Ministry of Youth Affairs within the Ministry of Information and Culture, in close co-operation with line ministries, civil society organizations including youth groups, and UN agencies. The document reflects the needs and abilities of young people in delivering peace, development and social and economic growth, and it makes clear recommendations towards youth participation at every level, in a free, independent and democratic Afghanistan.

In July last year, the 122-member Afghan Youth Parliament was established, with the assistance of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan and the first session was opened by the Deputy Special Representative for Afghanistan of the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Ms. Pernille Dahler Kardel, and addressed by President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani. This has been a great exercise for our youth to familiarize themselves with the mechanics of a pluralistic democracy and to discuss a broad range of issues from health to education and jobs. In July this year, the Afghan Youth Parliament held another session, with the support of the Upper House of the Afghan Parliament and the United Nations Population Fund, and its recommendations will be shared with Government officials and will be discussed in the two houses of the Afghan Parliament.

Afghanistan, supported by our international partners, has made countless efforts over the past sixteen years to tackle youth-related problems, most and foremost the issue of education: Over the past ten years, the literacy rate has increased to 40%, with thousands of schools and 150 public and private universities providing education. We seek to invest as much as possible to accomplish Sustainable Development Goal 4, “Quality Education”. Other areas of youth-related activities are tackling child marriage, unemployment, gender inequality, violence, radicalization, drugs, and the dangerous travels of young people undertaken as migrants, to seek better opportunities abroad.

In this context, let me also mention again the excellent high-level discussion on migration organized by the OSCE and IOM on Monday this week. Afghanistan suffers when young educated people leave our country. Following decades of war and conflict, the ensuing brain drain only adds to the many other challenges and impedes our efforts towards reconstruction and development. Nonetheless, we will always protect the dignity and well-being of all Afghan citizens abroad, especially young people and other vulnerable groups.

Our young people are our most valuable asset and our future, our only future and we will not spare a single effort to enable them to contribute to peace, stability, development and democracy in Afghanistan. Much has been achieved but much also remains to be done. To accomplish our goals, we will need the continued assistance of our international partners and I call on our partners here around this table to provide additional scholarships and fellowships for Afghan students. The Government of Afghanistan will also work to provide better opportunities for our young people, through increased foreign investments, trade and commerce, in our region and beyond.

H.E. Ambassador Khojesta Fana Ebrahimkhel presented her Letters of Credence to H.E. Li Yong, Director General of UNIDO, introducing Madam Ambassador as Permanent Representative of Afghanistan to UNIDO. The organization was created in 1966 as a special organ of the UN and was converted to a UN Specialized Agency in 1985, when also Afghanistan became a member. Since then, UNIDO has supported Afghanistan towards poverty reduction, rural development, strengthened export and trade capacities, agro-business, creation of employment opportunities, industrial governance, private sector development and environment management. Last year, Afghanistan and UNIDO signed a new Country Programming Framework (CPF), which is aligned with Afghanistan’s National Peace and Development Framework 2017-2021. The CPF shall make a meaningful contribution towards inclusive and sustainable industrial development (ISID) in Afghanistan, and shall promote the creation of jobs, resource efficiency and green industry. UNIDO and Afghanistan also cooperate on improving the situation of Least Developed Countries (LDCs) and Landlocked Developing Countries (LLDCs), as well as towards regional and inter-regional connectivity with Afghanistan — a free market economy offering vast opportunities for investment and trade — being located at the crossroads of the Eurasian land bridge, in the Heart of Asia.

H.E. Ambassador Khojesta Fana Ebrahimkhel presented her Letters of Credence to H.E. Lassina Zerbo, Executive Secretary of the Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO-PrepCom). The Ambassador now also serves as Permanent Representative to the CTBTO-PrepCom, an independent international organization within the UN family, having signed a Relationship Agreement with the UN in 2000. The Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) was created to guarantee a world free forever of nuclear testing. Afghanistan fervently supports this goal and signed and ratified the CTBT in 2003 and continuously promotes the entry-into-force of the Treaty, which needs to be signed and ratified by 44 specific nuclear technology holder countries, with 8 of them still pending — hence the appendix “Preparatory Commission”. Nonetheless, the CTBT has already created a de facto norm against nuclear testing: While more than 2,000 nuclear test explosions were carried out between 1945 and 1996, including in the neighborhood of Afghanistan, only half a dozen tests took place since the CTBT was created in 1996. Afghanistan has profited from the organization’s training workshops and similar programmes for stakeholders from developing countries. Furthermore, the International Monitoring System of the CTBTO-PrepCom can also be used for civilian purposes, such as early-warning in the event of earthquakes and similar natural disasters. Ambassador Ebrahimkhel and the entire team at the Permanent Mission look forward to strengthened cooperation between the CTBTO-PrepCom and Afghanistan.

H.E. Ambassador Khojesta Fana Ebrahimkhel presented her Letters of Credence to H.E. Yury Fedotov, Director General of the UN Office at Vienna (UNOV), introducing Madam Ambassador as Permanent Representative. Afghanistan closely cooperates with the UN programmes based in Vienna, including UNODC, INCB, SE4ALL, UNCITRAL and the Vienna offices of IOM, UNHCR and UNODA. As of 2018, Afghanistan will be a member of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND) and the Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice (CCPCJ), two functional commissions of ECOSOC and administered by UNODC. UNODC has also rolled out numerous projects for Afghan stakeholders over the past 15 years. The INCB is an independent expert body that promotes Governments’ compliance with the international drug control conventions, while ensuring availability of narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances for medical and scientific purposes. The SE4ALL works to accomplish universal access to sustainable energy, bringing together partners from the governments, private sector and civil society. UNCITRAL promotes world trade by harmonizing national regulations and removing certain obstacles to the flow of international trade. The Permanent Mission of Afghanistan in Vienna proactively engages with all Vienna-based organizations towards progress in Afghanistan and implementation of the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

H.E. Ambassador Khojesta Fana Ebrahimkhel presented her Letters of Credence to H.E. Ambassador Thomas Greminger, Secretary General of the OSCE. In her capacity as Permanent Representative to the OSCE, Madam Ambassador will foster and strengthen the excellent co-operation between Afghanistan and the OSCE, the world’s largest regional security organization, which is rooted in the 1973 Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe (CSCE, Helsinki Final Act 1975), renamed to OSCE in 1995. Afghanistan joined the OSCE as a Partner for Co-operation in 2003, enjoying a special relationship with the organization, manifested by a large number of programmes and projects for Afghan stakeholders and declarations, which emphasized OSCE’s engagement with Afghanistan. The people of Afghanistan benefit from the OSCE’s expertise and practical work on the ground: stimulation of the economy; regional connectivity; empowerment of women; freedom of the media; election support; addressing violent extremism; to name but a few. No effort will be spared to make full use of the offerings of the OSCE to accomplish sustainable progress in Afghanistan.

H.E. Ambassador Khojesta Fana Ebrahimkhel presented her Letters of Credence to H.E. Martin Kreutner, Dean and Executive Secretary of the International Anti-Corruption Academy (IACA), based in Laxenburg/Lower Austria. Madam Ambassador now also serves as Permanent Representative of the I.R. of Afghanistan to IACA, which was established in 2010. Afghanistan acceded as a Party in 2013 and the Permanent Mission in Vienna is actively engaged in facilitating participation of Afghan stakeholders in IACA’s academic programmes and anti-corruption trainings. As an internationally renowned centre of excellence in anti-corruption and compliance, IACA provides essential capacity-building tools towards prevention and elimination of the global menace of corruption. The Permanent Mission shall make every effort to further advance our great collaboration with IACA and to provide additional opportunities for Afghan students, officials, and professionals from the private sector.